Contacts are commonly formed by machining a piece of metal to form a tubular rear end that can receive and crimp or solder to a wire, and a front mating end that forms a pin or socket. Several different types of contacts are required, including those with pin mating ends, those with socket mating ends, and those with mating and termination ends designed for solder, crimp, or pc tail connections. The machining of an entire contact results in considerable cost, and the need to keep several different contact types in inventory further increases the cost. In many cases, it is desirable to gold plate the mating end of the contact. If this is done by plating the entire contact, the cost of the gold increases, while if only the mating end is to be plated then there is a cost for masking the rest of the contact. Contacts which could be constructed at moderate cost and which were then available in different versions with minimum inventory, would be of value.